Universal Rebooting Stephen King’s ‘Firestarter’

In 1984, a nine-year-old Drew Barrymore burned up the silver screen in Firestarter, a movie about a pyrokinetic girl on the run from the government.

Now, 26 years later, Universal and the Dino De Laurentiis Co. are looking to fan the flames of the franchise and bring the movie back to life in a new reboot.

According to Variety, the project will still be based on Stephen King’s original novel, like the first movie, but it will not follow the exact same plot and the “the main character is to be reinvented with a little more edge.” Horror screenwriter Mark L. Smith is set to write the script for the reboot.

In a world where reboots and remakes reign supreme, this news may not excite that many people. However, I think Firestarter is the perfect kind of movie to reboot. Yes, it has a large fanbase, but, objectively speaking, it’s not that great of a movie. A fresh look at the film could prove interesting – if handled correctly.

Of course, as with all things involving reboots, it could also be a disaster. Rebooting horror movies is particularly risky as shown by the remake of Friday the 13th and Halloween (though those films also have their admirers).

In her comments on the film, Martha De Laurentiis said, “We see this as a unique, character-driven thriller with a supernatural edge, based on a timeless concept and enhanced by recent visual effects advances.” Does that sound like something you’d be interested in seeing on the big screen?

A better question for discussion: what is the best movie based on a Stephen King work, as well as the worst movie? My votes are The Shining (even though it’s way different than the book) and Maximum Overdrive (a hilariously dumb movie that was actually directed by King).